Guiding in Norway Part 2 – Disfunction in the North

Continued from: Guiding in Norway Part 1 – Commercial Driving Regulation Enforcement Begins on Lofoten

The following is going to be long, complicated and confusing. And if you think it’s bad just to read, imagine trying to operate a business under these conditions.

Going back to late 2020, the new transportation regulations required all persons offering transportation for payment, even if transportation was not the main purpose, but a side product like photography or ski guiding, to have a valid taxi license for the vehicle in use – løyve. Having a løyve required the vehicle to be owned by a Norwegian business and the vehicle registered as a taxi in the motor vehicle database. For the owner of the business to receive a løyve, they also had to have a kjoreseddel – taxi drivers license. Once thew news spread and the mountains of paperwork, police, and financial checks were done, most local Lofoten guides got on board once they navigated the then confusing application process.

Fast forward to late 2024 and the government decided that all persons with a løyve now needed to be connected to a central taxi dispatch by Q2 of 2025. Obviously photography guides and other tour operators are not taxis. So some other new language was put into the laws that allowed small tour operators to receive a ‘dispensation for the requirement for a taxi license/løyve.’ It’s more or less the same thing, but different.

The benefit of the new language was the allowance of rental vehicles to receive the dispensation, not just a vehicle owned by the person/business. Though that doesn’t help me too much after I was forced to buy a 2nd van in 2023, which sits unused in my driveway most of the year. Cost of doing business in Norway…

The granting of the løyves or dispensation from løyve happens on a county by county basis. For those of us operating in Lofoten, this is Nordland county. For any guiding which might occur in Senja or Tromsø, this would be Troms county. This is opposed to larger commercial buses, which are regulated on a national level, also for international buses and drivers.

Troms county is currently not granting dispensations from the taxi license, but still requires all tour operators to have a valid løyve and a vehicles owned by the business and the owner to have taken the taxi business operators exam. How they deal with the requirement for connection to a central taxi dispatch, I don’t know. But the difference between a løyve and dispensation is an important detail that will come up in a minute.

Let’s go back in time again. Lofoten only has 2 small regional airports, Leknes and Svolvær. The nearest ‘major’ airport which can handle normal passenger jets like 737s/a320s is Harstad-Narvik Evenes airport, several hours drive east of Lofoten along the main E10 road. Destination Lofoten, the main visitor agency for Lofoten has been promoting Evenes airport as the regional hub over the last years and has now gotten several direct flights from multiple European destinations to the airport. This sounds good, right? Easier access to the Lofoten region for international visitors. But… With Norway there’s always a but.

To reach Evenes airport from Lofoten along the E10 requires crossing into Troms county on two occasions, 9km and 50km stretches respectively (of a total of 230km from Leknes), before reaching Evenes airport, which itsef is in Nordland county. Troms county is not allowing the transport of clients by valid dispensation holders from Nordland on these sections of road, even if they are just transiting to/from other areas in Nordland. In other words, guides and small tour operators from Lofoten are not allowed to pickup clients from the airport that the Lofoten region is marketing as Lofoten’s regal hub to the outside world.

Nordland county is now having to take Troms county to the central government for clarification.

A general reasoning behind the laws is to have a safe and regulated industry, including general road safety. While not allowing local Lofoten guides to reach Evenes airport, or forcing them to take a full day detour via Bodø and Narvik, the exact opposite of safety is achieved. In practice, it is probably making the roads even more dangerous, as clients who might have booked guided transportation from Evenes airport will now either have to rely on infrequent public transportation, or rent a car themselves for the long drive to Lofoten. There is already extreme safety issues with inexperienced tourists driving in winter conditions in recent years, including a fatal head-on collision near Evenes airport in January 2026, when a tourist in a rental car on the way from Tromsø to Lofoten crossed over into oncoming traffic, killing two sisters and severely injuring a third.

So this bizarre standoff between Troms and Nordland is not likely achieving its goal of safer roads, and is more likely making the roads more dangerous by limiting (safer) transport options for visitors.

Meanwhile, as I’m sitting in a hotel room in Svolvær on the last days of a workshop, there is a German tour bus driven by a German driver parked outside. And down the road is a Lithuanian tour bus driven by a Lithuanian driver. Both of these vehicles are allowed to freely travel from Nordland to Troms and anywhere else in Norway, as large buses are regulated by commercial driving laws from the state road agency – Statens Vegvesen. While myself, with a Norwegian vehicle, a Norwegian taxi driving license, a Norwegian vehicle dispensation, Norwegian insurance, and everything else, am only allowed to operate within Nordland county, as small guides are regulated under county-by-county taxi regulations. So international bus drivers unfamiliar with regional weather conditions and roads are given more operating rights than local small guides.